Money and Other Rewards as Motivators for Employees: Pros and Cons

Running Head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Topic- Money and other financial rewards are a fundamental part of the
employment relationship and can be used effectively in motivating employees.
Motivation plays an important role in all business sectors, whether state owned or private.
It is important because it works as a driving force for the staffs towards achieving certain goals
which increase the company's production too (Olafsen et al 2015). The essay discusses the pros
and cons of money and other factors such as paid holidays, bonus, employee discounts, paid
vacation, company parties or recreations, discount coupons, as motivating factors for the
employees (Landry et al 2016). The essay further throws light on the range of advantages and
disadvantages of monetary and also non – monetary rewards. The reward can be used as a
motivating factor for the employees who lack motivation and proper productivity. The use of
monetary reward as a motivating factor becomes a threat when it disturbs the workplace
atmosphere and creates hostility amongst the employees who run after bonus and incentives.
Employee turnover, mental depression, absenteeism, burnouts are a few of the results of lack of
motivation and the deadly rush for monetary motivation is the negative factor related to this issue
(Kuranchie-Mensah and Amponsah-Tawiah 2016). It can be deduced that there are almost equal
number of pros and cons of money as a motivating factor and the organization is responsible to
maintain the two.
There are many organizational behavior theories such as Maslow’ hierarchy of
necessities, Herzberg's motivator-hygiene, equity theory and many others. Employees stay stuck
to work when they are satisfied with their job and motivated in their respective priority fields.
Different people have different priorities (Mikkelsen, Jacobsen and Andersen 2017). Everyone
cannot be satisfied with only the monetary rewards. Maslow’s hierarchy shows the five primary
categories of needs that should be given importance to motivate the staffs (Nimri, Bdair and Al
Bitar 2015). They are physiological needs, safety and security needs, social needs esteem needs
and self-actualization needs. According to Herzberg theory, there are five features of work that
bring about satisfaction, that are goal accomplishment, appreciation, the job, duty or
responsibility and progression (Koch et al 2014). His theory builds the scope for appreciation,
personal growth and improvement among their staffs. The company should promote an
employee after completing a certain period working in the company and certify him with

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
appreciation and recognition. The equity theory declares that the more an employee gets
rewarded, the more he gets satisfied with the input and efforts he/she has given to work.
There are few potential organisational problem situations such as employees who lack
motivations may tend to damage or interrupt the daily production of the organization. Culture-
shock, excessive workload, language problem, difficulty in team management, accommodation
and daily transport problems can affect their performance. Some employees who are engaged
with the company tools and machines on a daily basis and are supposed to maintain safety while
using them and need the most attention (Sari 2018). Hence, it is the responsibility of the
organization to maintain a steady workforce and behave sensitively regarding social, cultural,
and ethical issues. An organization should take care of the emotions of the employees to continue
the business smoothly. Lack of motivation and lack of job satisfaction may lead to absenteeism,
poor quality work, crude production, environmental and reputational risk, financial and health
risk and others.
Employees can get motivated by money through a far range of organization. The
American Compensation Association and the American Productivity Center conducted a survey
which proved that up to 99 percent of companies using money as a reward delivered the highest
production and resulted in being positive (Koch et al. 2014). If money is kept as the motivating
device in a particular organization, it can open various ways of using it. There are various ways
such as bonus, commission, pay, gift vouchers, foreign business trip rewards, which can initiate a
competition among the employees to achieve greater goals. Money appeals each employee,
irrespective of their designations. It appeals to a lower class worker and equally attracts a CEO
of a company. Therefore, another advantage of using money as a motivator is that it fascinates all
types of staffs. Since the ultimate aim of most of the people is to live a better life in the future
than today, employees strive to work hard to earn some extra dollars at the end of the month.
There are some apparent developments and specifications in organizational behavior
recently. In today's scenario of growing competition in the market, employers prefer non-
monetary or extrinsic rewards over intrinsic rewards because it is cost-effective and influential in
motivating the employees and recognizing new talent and high-calibre recruits (Nimri, Bdai and
Al Bitar 2015). Research has been conducted on the benefits of financial and non-financial
rewards, and it has been found that comparably those companies which focus more on non-